


i'm not trying (you only hold me up like this)

by thememoriesfire



Category: Glee
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-12
Updated: 2011-05-12
Packaged: 2017-10-19 07:34:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,462
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/198457
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thememoriesfire/pseuds/thememoriesfire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rachel’s like a volcano.  Quinn’s more like … a toaster, occasionally letting some feelings peek out at the top with a small click.</p>
            </blockquote>





	i'm not trying (you only hold me up like this)

Quinn takes the picture by herself.

Some part of Rachel can’t really believe it, but the throbbing in her cheek reminds her that this entire night has just been full of surprises. Really, in many ways, this is the worst most awkward experience of her teen social life; two boys who _both_ deserve to get slapped over the head fighting over their right to her, as if she can’t make her own choices, and a three-way date with two people who have spent most of the evening dancing together and possibly wishing she wasn’t there.

All of that pales in comparison to getting slugged in the face by Quinn Fabray, obviously, who usually is about the more subtle ways of torture. But--then she usually also gets what she wants, so this is a night of exceptions in every way.

Does she actually, though? It’s a loaded thought.

Mike Chang spins Rachel outwards and back in again, and she laughs before training her eyes on the photography stand, where Quinn’s head is held high, but her shoulders are some more narrow than they usually are--like she’s turning in on herself a little bit.

She’s never been more beautiful, giving the world just a little bit more of what lies beneath, Rachel thinks absently, and watches the flash before Kurt sidles up next to her and presses a giddy kiss to her red, angry cheek.

*

The part that seems most surreal is the part where she touched Quinn’s face. She can’t really put into words what she was expecting, and she’s had to hold Quinn’s _hand_ before as part of some of their glee routines, so it’s not like there was any doubt about Quinn being, well, … human. (The fact that she’s even having this thought at all means that she was correct, and her fathers were wrong, about the extent to which watching Twilight would be damaging for her mental health and intelligence.)

Still. There’s noting that Quinn has a pulse, and then there’s feeling her skin; uneven, brittle, perfectly made-up until Rachel’s hand had swiped past it with some tissue, collecting the remnants of the five or so tears Quinn had shed.

She knows, on some level, that she watched Quinn have a complete emotional meltdown in that bathroom. It’s almost inconceivable to Rachel, though, that someone’s _meltdown_ could take place in so many small moments.

Rachel’s like a volcano. Quinn’s more like … a toaster, occasionally letting some feelings peek out at the top with a small click.

“What are you staring at, Berry?” Santana asks, appearing over her shoulder like a particularly evil Jack in the Box.

“I’m not sure,” Rachel mumbles, before she can stop herself, and then forces herself to look at Santana. “By the way, your future life partner has danced with seven other girls tonight, so I suggest you get your head out of your … rectal cavity, and become number eight before she goes _home_ with one of them.”

Santana stares at her with an almost comical expression of _oh no she didn’t_ , and Rachel can’t help a slightly smug smile.

Really--who do they think they’re fooling?

Another flash goes off in the background, and somehow Sam--perfectly wonderful Sam, who would make a better boyfriend than any of her former boyfriends and is going to be a wonderful husband, and might possibly be gay because _no guy_ is that nice all the time--is already heading over to Quinn with a smile, holding out his hand for a dance.

Some part of Rachel realizes she’d spend good money to watch their tentative friendship: four blond heads on a bed in a hotel room, with Quinn reading children’s stories and helping Sam’s sister pick out outfits for school the next day.

The only time when Quinn doesn’t wear that awful mask that she seems to think she needs is when she’s around children.

Oh, right. And when she has a complete emotional meltdown in the bathroom at prom and allows someone to _help_ her, for just five minutes.

“You look amazing, Rachel,” Blaine tells her.

“Thanks,” she says, and watches from across the dance floor as Quinn laughs with Sam and then looks at her, with what looks like an almost _grateful_ expression on her face.

*

Prom on a budget ran out of enough money for taxis home, and Jesse has disappeared--which is no surprise, he’s probably nursing his wounded ego at some older woman’s house. Honestly, Rachel wouldn’t even be surprised if he was sitting on Shelby’s sofa right now, complaining about how difficult the real world is.

Either way, Tina and Mike can only take Sam and Mercedes home--it’s on the way--and Rachel contemplates calling her dads when Santana appears next to her and says, “I’m going to kill you.”

“Of course you are, Santana,” Rachel says, because the night has finally caught up to her and she wants to get out of her heels, and spend some time writing reflectively about the latest stupid thing Finn has done, and the latest unexpected thing Quinn has done.

(A statistical analysis of her diary over the past seven months has revealed that she’s mentioned Finn’s name at least two hundred and thirty eight times, and Quinn’s …. almost double that.

Her therapist calls it a typical teenage fixation on the competition.

She’s not told her therapist about the part where the competition could be a _model_. And she hasn’t had a chance to tell her therapist about the part where she knows, on some level, that she’d rather have the competition as a friend at this point than the boy as her partner.)

“Look, Rachel, I don’t know what you think you know--”

Rachel sighs and wonders what would happen if she reached over and touched Santana’s face. She’d probably lose a hand; not worth it, because gesticulation is part of the perfect Broadway performance. “You’re a lesbian. You’re in love with Brittany. She’s in love with you. And you’re being silly about societal expectations.”

“Yeah. Silly. Because nobody’s ever talked shit about your dads in this town. Or Kurt. Or Blaine,” Santana says, sounding very pinched.

“Santana--you’re _strong_ , okay? You can handle this. You’re the only girl I know that the entire football team is actually terrified of, and honestly, you would be doing the podunk population of Lima a favor by educating them about the inaccuracies of lesbian stereotyping.”

Santana blinks at her a few times. “Which are?”

“You don’t wear flannel, you don’t play golf--”

“--damn right I don’t, and it would be great if you could tell those nerds on the golf team that--”

“--and you’re the second prettiest girl in school,” Rachel says.

Santana’s expression goes from annoyed to smug to _curious_ in a second. “Second?”

Rachel suspects she’s blushing, but it doesn’t really matter when one half of her face has been red for the better part of two hours. “I suggest you take that for the compliment it is, and--”

“Are you gay for Fabray?” Santana asks, sounding incredibly amused.

“What? _No_.”

“I don’t know, Berry, this is sounding pretty gay to me, and as you’ve so subtly pointed out, I might know a thing or two about … that,” Santana says, losing some of her bluster.

Rachel rolls her eyes. “Having twenty-twenty vision isn’t a sign of latent homosexuality.”

“Nope. But the way you were checking out her ass when her picture was being taken _is_.”

Rachel purses her lips and says, “I think this is the end of what marks our first and possibly only ever civil conversation. I need to call my parents, as my ride home got himself thrown out of the dance.”

Santana smiles, all teeth and false sweetness, and says, “Yeah. You might have that in common with someone else.”

*

Quinn’s still inside.

(Rachel’s only looking because it’s _polite_ to enquire if … her friend needs a ride home as well.)

She’s looking at the stage from one of the tables in the back of the gym, and the expression on her face is unreadable yet again. Her right hand is twisting the corsage on her left, and Rachel hesitates for a few profound seconds before sitting down two seats away from her.

“The dance is over,” Quinn says.

Rachel’s both impressed and concerned that the crack in her voice is completely gone again. She sounds devoid of... everything.

“I know. My dads are coming to pick me up, and... how are you getting home?” she asks.

The corsage twists again, and Quinn shrugs; her shoulders slump, and all the composure she’s managed for the last minute is gone again.

“I should call my mom,” she finally says.

“But you won’t,” Rachel says, softly, when Quinn continues staring straight ahead.

“I don’t want her to...” Quinn doesn’t finish the sentence, just keeps twisting the corsage, before suddenly ripping it off her hand and tossing it onto the table. “That. Right there. It’s the _only_ thing he did right tonight was--and I was _so happy_. I was just so relieved that for once, he noticed something about me and didn’t immediately compare it back to you. What kind of relationship _is_ this, where after six months that’s still something I need to be grateful for?”

It’s possibly more words than Quinn has ever said, and every single one of them breaks Rachel’s heart.

“He’s not worth it,” Quinn says, wiping angrily at her eyes. “I know he’s not worth it. God knows I put up with it as long as I did because I thought it would help me win, but I wasn’t ready for _this_. And Kurt--”

“Kurt’s okay,” Rachel says, softly.

“I need to apologize to him. Because this wasn’t about me,” Quinn says, dully. “Almost nothing in my life is actually about _me_ , it seems.”

It feels like they’re standing on the edge of a precipice. The truth, from Rachel, about the corsage would probably push Quinn over; and a carefully placed lie would continue the cycle they’re all in.

She remembers watching, in horror, as Finn lunged at Jesse, and forces herself to think about next year; a summer in Lima, a fall in New York. Can she really even see Finn there _with_ her? Does she even _want_ things tying her down to this town, where she and her family will never fit in?

Does she really want to spend the rest of her life with a guy who thinks of her fathers as “Rachel’s two gay dads”, as opposed to just “Rachel’s dads”?

It feels like time is reversing rapidly, and she’s once again armed with information that she didn’t ask to have; except this situation is a mirror of the last, because she knows Finn’s secret, now, and Quinn will be the one breaking if she lets it out.

She sighs, looking at the corsage on the table, because she already knows what happens next. Lying is never an option. Not for her..

“He chose the corsage because the band matches your eyes,” she says, as gently as she can, in the near-silence of random members of the clean-up crew piling chairs together and pushing tables to the side of the room.

Quinn’s eyes train on her after a second, and she releases a shaky breath. “What about the gardenia?”

“Billie Holiday used to wear them. They’re--Finn probably looked up a list of possible corsage flowers on the internet and realized that giving someone a gardenia equates to calling them … lovely.”

They stay silent for a while after that, and Rachel feebly waves to Brad from across a room, whose stoic expression has loosened into surprise at the sight of the two of them having a conversation that isn’t just pointless yelling about Finn.

That poor man, having to witness all our drama, Rachel thinks, for just a second, and then snorts unwillingly.

Quinn looks at her curiously, and then looks away again. “I’d like that ride. If that’s okay.”

“Yeah, absolutely,” Rachel says, picking at her nails, because the comfortable silence that has lingered on since their... moment in the bathroom feels a little less comfortable, out of nowhere.

They say nothing until Rachel’s phone rings again, but when they walk away from the table, Quinn doubles back and picks up the corsage and ties it back around her wrist.

Rachel tries not to read anything into that.

*

Finn finds her at her locker around third period, on Monday.

“I just wanted to say that I’m really sorry. About ruining prom.”

Rachel stares at him in a way that she knows she never has, but this weekend has brought with it some truths about Finn Hudson, and he has a lot of growing up to do before he actually materializes as the leading man she thought he was.

“It’s not _me_ that you need to apologize to, Finn.”

He sighs and then scuffs his feet and says, “Yeah, she’s not taking my calls.”

“And you’re surprised by this?”

“I just--do you … maybe have any ideas on what I can do? Your thoughts on the corsage were great, she was super happy with it--”

Rachel slams her locker shut with surprising strength. “ _No._ ”

She’s not sure if she’s ever said the word to him before; probably not, judging by the look on his face.

“Rachel, I _said_ I was sorry.”

“I’m not helping you patch up your relationship with your girlfriend who, frankly, you have been treating like _dirt_ for the past six months, two days after you assault my prom date because in your head, it is actually _okay_ to want both of us.” She knows she’s almost yelling at him, and weirdly thinks of _Quinn_ before taking a deep breath; it makes sense, if only because Quinn is the most composed person alive, and it _helps_ , because the end of her thought comes out much more quietly. “And it’s not, Finn. It’s just not.”

She moves around him, clutching her binder to her chest, and then locks eyes with Quinn, slowly pushing two notebooks into her own locker.

There’s nothing that she could say, and nothing Quinn would want to hear right now anyway, so Rachel just looks away again and heads to English without satisfying that urge to look around and see the stupefied look on Finn’s face.

*

Honesty, _what_ has she been thinking?

*

The news of the break-up runs through the McKinley grapevine like a rapid, and Rachel’s eating a sandwich in the choir room when Tina walks in and says, “You’ve heard, right? Or actually, I’m sure you’re already planning some sort of ten point plan to win him back for good.”

“It would be exceptionally bad for team morale for me to do that so close to nationals,” Rachel says, without looking up from the copy of Playbill she’s reading.

“Yes, because you care about glee more than you do about Finn,” Tina scoffs, sitting down behind her. “You have a funny way of showing that, Rachel.”

She’d protest, but the last eight months have felt like a cloud that’s only _just_ passed over her head, and she knows that Tina is right. That Fleetwood Mac song... God.

Finn comes into practice looking both confused and angry, and Quinn doesn’t come at all.

Rachel’s starting to learn a thing or two about the places Quinn goes when life doesn’t go to plan, however.

*

The back row of the auditorium is nearly dark, but the flash of Quinn’s cross--which feels equal parts like a shield and a token of faith--makes it easy to spot her.

“Here to gloat?” Quinn asks, without most of the bite the question would have had even seven days ago.

“No. Here to... commiserate,” Rachel says. “If that’s okay.”

Everything about Quinn is about asking for permission. If she doesn’t _ask,_ and just sits down, Quinn will retreat even further and probably snap something awful at her. Even though it’s clear to Rachel now that Quinn _never_ means those things, she’s still not exactly excited about hearing them.

“I’m not bonding with you over breaking up with Finn,” Quinn says, looking away.

“We can talk about something else,” Rachel offers, again sitting down two seats away from her.

Quinn takes a deep breath and keeps looking into the distance. It’s a part of her, that staring ahead; she does it more than anyone else Rachel knows, except for Rachel herself, because she’s had one toe in New York since she was three.

“Where would you go? If money wasn’t an object,” she asks.

Quinn blinks slowly, but doesn’t otherwise react. “Columbia. For journalism.”

Rachel bites down on her immediate reaction of _really_ , because honestly. Quinn is on the honor roll, and possibly would be on the school paper if that didn’t have the connotations it _does_ at their school. It’s still just unreal; hearing her express a completely normal desire that has nothing to do with her appearance, or _family_.

It’s unreal, but it’s also--she glances at Quinn, and knows she’s tilting her head like a puppy, but maybe if she just stares hard enough, she can actually _see_ what’s going on inside of her head.

Quinn smiles after a moment of the scrutiny. “Not quite shallow enough for the head cheerleader?”

“Like I said. You’re a lot more than just a pretty face,” Rachel says, softly.

Most of their time spent together is made up of incredibly dense silences, and this is no different.

Except, at some point, Quinn’s knee turns towards her, and then Quinn’s torso follows, and finally her head, until they’re actually looking at each other.

“What’s New York like?” Quinn asks, her voice thready and intimate, like it’s costing her the entire world to even admit to wanting to know about a life outside of Lima, Ohio.

Rachel could fill the auditorium with a hundred speeches, and a good twenty five songs, that would explain, but in the end all she can think to say is, “I’ll show you. When we’re there for Nationals.”

Quinn’s expression remains blank for a second, and Rachel realizes she’s forgotten the cardinal rule.

“If that’s... I mean, if you want to.”

Quinn’s lips relax into a softer smile than Rachel’s ever seen on her face. “We’ll see.”

*

They don’t really talk to each other until nationals, except for in the context of Glee.

Rachel spends most of her time imitating Adolf Hitler’s campaign speeches to motivate their lazy-as-hell teammates to take this seriously. Just because it’s not the highlight of _their_ lives doesn’t mean they can’t put in a solid effort so as to secure Rachel’s dreams.

The only one she doesn’t seem to need to berate constantly is Quinn, actually, who is not speaking to Finn and not really speaking to anyone except for Sam, but doesn’t roll her eyes when Rachel tells her vocal break is sloppy on the last day before they head up to New York and just says, “You’re making me sing something that’s out of my league, Berry.”

“I would never do that if it would jeapordize our chances, so I’m not doing that, and you will just have to try again,” Rachel says, crabbily, before demonstrating the same run she’s asking Quinn to do.

Quinn rolls her eyes. “Do you really need me to say it? Because I will. You’re a _better singer_ than I am, and I’m not going to be able to do that.”

Rachel almost stomps her foot in irritation and says, “For a change, this isn’t about me demonstrating my own abilities; I’m trying to clue you into a technique that will help you make that run.”

Quinn sighs and says, “I’m not a trained singer.”

“Oh, for God’s sake,” Rachel says, before taking two steps forward and placing her hand on Quinn’s diaphragm. “Sing from _there_ , because it will improve your control, and try to keep your head still without swallowing when you switch from your head voice--that’s this one--back to your chest voice--which is this one.”

Quinn blinks at her, but gives it a go anyway, and Rachel feels her hand lift and sink back in, even as Quinn still trips on the break and the note falls apart.

“See?” she says, her eyes taking on that darker color that means that she’s losing her patience.

Rachel rolls her eyes and says, “It’s not your chest. It’s your larynx.”

“Oh, well, if it’s just my _larynx_ ,” Quinn mimics, rolling her eyes.

The entire glee club is staring at them, and Rachel drops her hand when she notices.

A small smile is playing around Quinn’s lips, before she says, “Nobody will notice if I don’t complete this run.”

“ _I’ll_ know,” Rachel says, staring her down, and after a moment Quinn says, “Larynx, huh?”

They don’t speak much of the same language, but perfection is something they have in common.

*

Still, when they’re actually in New York, some part of Rachel thinks that her offer has been declined just because Quinn has given her no indication that she should have planned something.

(Experiencing the city is one thing, because you can do that by just being in it, but _understanding it_? Rachel has folders full of anecdotes about past trips in her bedroom, replete with scribbled anecdotes about hidden gems she’s stumbled upon with her dads, that would give someone a feel for the real city--not just the touristy parts of it.)

It therefore actually shocks her when on the night before nationals, Quinn knocks on her door and says, “Show me something.”

“I’m _meditating_ ,” Rachel says.

“You mean praying,” Quinn says, looking at Rachel’s pose.

“I mean I’m meditating, … and possibly praying that Finn won’t trip tomorrow,” Rachel concedes.

Quinn lips flicker in and out of that private smile again, and then she says, “You’re driving everyone crazy. I’ve offered to distract you. Which means I’m taking you up on that tour.”

“I’m not leaving the hotel the night before nationals. We could get … lost. Or raped, or something. Our chances are slim enough without me getting maimed,” Rachel protests.

Quinn’s face falls. Not for long, and not in any noticeable way, which is when Rachel realizes that she can actually _read_ her, and Quinn is making concessions and taking small steps forward and because Rachel is so single-mindedly thinking about yet another dumb competition--now that they’re done fighting about Finn (#1) and prom queen (#2)--she’s actually losing the shot she’s been trying to create for two years now.

“Actually--I want a Reuben,” she says, quickly, when Quinn’s already one foot out the door.

“I’m not eating one of those. They’re a heart attack on rye,” Quinn says, with a glance back towards Rachel. “Also, aren’t you a vegan?”

“It’s... a metaphorical Reuben. I just meant I was hungry, and we could go to a diner, just as a starting point.”

Quinn looks torn between rolling her eyes and smiling. “A _metaphorical_ Reuben?”

“This is kind of a stressful time of year for me, okay,” Rachel mumbles, but her arms are already sliding into her coat, and she’s wracking her brain to try and make this the best possible first exposure to the city ever.

Quinn’s future seems to depend on it, anyway.

*

They end up at a crummy diner in the village that serves absolutely nothing vegan and nothing with the amount of calories that fit the Fabray diet, as Quinn somewhat mockingly calls it, so they end up with cappucino (Quinn) and green tea (Rachel) in a booth, watching the other customers and some people strolling down the street.

“I didn’t think it would feel this big,” Quinn says.

“Yeah. It always does,” Rachel says, blowing on her tea. “I’ve been here more times than I can count, and yet.”

Quinn smiles faintly, and then says, “I wanted to say thank you. For not going after Finn.”

“I don’t want to talk about Finn,” Rachel says, because she doesn’t, and Quinn doesn’t need to thank her for anything to do with that boy. She’ll look back on her junior year of high school with shame for the rest of her life, so this is the _last_ thing that needs saying between them. “I’m--a little tired of Finn being the only reason we even talk to each other, to be honest.”

“He’s not anymore, though, is he,” Quinn says, in a contemplative tone of voice.

Rachel takes a careful sip and then asks the question that she needs an answer to more than most. “Why are you here? I mean--why did you take me up on this?”

Quinn’s silent for almost an entire minute, and right around the time that Rachel decides she’s not going to get an answer, Quinn says, “Because I’ve spent years trying to ruin your life, and you spent ten minutes explaining to the guy you liked how to make _me_ happy.”

It’s not a good enough reason, but it sounds like the truth, and so Rachel says, “Everyone else is going to do normal tourist things after the competition; you know, Times Square, the Empire State, Central Park.”

“I’m sure,” Quinn says.

“We could--do that. Or we could do something... I don’t know.”

She’s fumbling, and suddenly this feels like asking far too much, or at least not being honest about what she’s asking. All she can think is that Quinn was a glorious prom queen candidate, but right now, in her denim jacket and her brown boots and the hair that Rachel’s always thought of as her _casual_ hair, and her light mid-day make-up, she’s unbelievably stunning.

 _This city suits you,_ she almost says, but Quinn Fabray, shackled to Lima in her mind, isn’t ready to hear that yet. And Rachel’s got an entire year left to persuade her that the only thing actually chaining her down isn’t real, so there’s time for that, yet.

“What did you have in mind?” Quinn asks, taking a sip of her drink and ending up with a small milk mustache that somehow only makes the rest of her look better.

Rachel hazards a small smile and says, “Would it be too lame to just ask you to trust me?”

Quinn’s eyes flicker up and down her face for a second, until she says, “No. If I’m going to trust anyone, it might as well be you.”

Three frat guys from one of the city universities burst into the door later, and Rachel looks at them and thinks, _that’s Finn, five years from now_ , and feels absolutely nothing at the sight of it.

Quinn licks at her lips, a second later, and Rachel sits back and lets the city pulse around them.


End file.
